I was born deaf in 1982. My blog discusses facts and my life. I plan to get stem cells in the near future and expect a 20-40db improvement in my hearing. That technology for deafness recently became available but I will wait for the pioneers to go ahead first, then I am next.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

All my audiograms thus far with my comments on them!

My audiograms are shown below. Click on each to enlarge.

This is the oldest audiogram I can find, its from 1998. That audiogram did say I have a stable profound hearing loss so I assume it was the same on previous audiograms. Maybe the audiologist somehow kept a copy before 1998, we will have to call around and find out. I can tell you that I didn't hear unaided even when I was little so I certainly wasn't HOH but deaf since birth.

I do wonder if I had cochlear dead zones in the high frequencies. I do remember being able to hear birds and whistles so I probably was still able to hear 3000Hz. My aided hearing took a big dip past 1500Hz despite my unaided hearing being flat. My dad says the audiologist programmed maximum gains in the mid and high frequencies but did turn the gains down a bit at 250Hz, that's why im missing out in that frequency :(

My mom found this audiogram in July 2009. I was shocked and surprised to see that I had no residual hearing above 500Hz! The arrows point downwards at 750Hz and up at the 110db max(90db max at 8000Hz) that this audiometer was capable of outputting. I was also shocked how much worse my hearing got! I never noticed that I lost what little high(er) frequencies I had! This means there's so few sounds that are high frequencies I never noticed I lost them!

My aided audiogram taken 20 days later. My unaided audiogram was input from 20 days ago, I don't think they retested my unaided hearing. My aided hearing at 250Hz remained the same 35db as it was in 1998 but it took a huge dive in the other frequencies. I am surprised at only hearing 50db aided with 95db unaided when I heard 30db aided with 90db unaided in 1998!

I am also surprised I heard aided to 3000Hz when I had no unaided hearing past 500Hz! Perhaps this was a false response due to cochlear dead regions? I am impressed I could understand some words on a speech test with such poor aided hearing! It goes to show how important the low frequencies are!

I was surprised at that 65db threshold at 250Hz! I also recorded better thresholds across the audiogram compared to 2002! Surely my hearing didn't improve? Maybe those are just false positive responses due to cochlear dead zones above 750Hz.

This left corner audiogram is from September 2008. My hearing falls off the bottom in the higher frequencies. Pretty much identical to my 2002 audiogram. The audiologist then said that no HA would touch a 120db loss and that he recommends CI. The next day he retracted his recommendation after seeing that I got some benefit from the new Phonak Naida HAs. I still hear pretty good in the lows.

I was surprised at the poor scores at 250Hz. Ive tested my hearing on several occasions after this audiogram and I can hear 70db at 250Hz. My aided 250Hz hearing is way better than 35db, I know because I hear 250Hz louder and further than 500Hz at home on my speakers. That audiometer needs to be recalibrated at 250Hz. However my other scores are accurate.

This audiogram from July 2009 was taken in-situ with audiogram direct, a feature my HAs support. My unaided hearing is 120db at 1000Hz and up. The aided scores are a home test with my speaker but they make sense given how much gain my HAs were programmed for. I plan to have another aided test in a soundfield for official scores now that my HAs have been reprogrammed. Ill edit this post with all future audiograms.